Politic?: Ukrainian Reprisals Against Russian Collaborators

"This terrorist activity requires special attention."
"This is nothing but a terrorist attack and we should treat it as such."
Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman

Russian occupation forces inspect a car damaged in a car bomb attack attributed to Kherson partisan resistance. The target, Yevhen Soboliev, a local collaborator, was reported to survive. Photo: Suspilne

Russia's 'special military operation' which the Kremlin uses as an acceptable code-nomenclature for forcing a violent conflict on its neighbour is strictly legitimate, as the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin have explained nauseatingly frequently to their critics. It is, in fact, they explain, a liberation movement designed to free Ukrainians from the intolerable shackles of fascism under which the nation is held ransom to its neo-Nazi government.

Ukraine's decision to remain true to itself, from the government to its military to every faithful citizen by fighting back, by opposing the invasion, on the other hand, is held by Moscow to be criminal activity, terrorism, no less. And while it is perfectly acceptable and normal and courageous for Russian forces to invade its neighbour, to wreak havoc and destruction, create millions of internally displaced, of refugees, the destruction of entire towns and villages, when Ukrainian troops manage to shoot projectiles over the border into Russian towns, it is symbolic of Ukrainian fascism.

Western nations, that have publicly and frequently lauded the courage of Ukraine and of its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy who has become a symbol of defiant courage under fire -- lavish Ukraine with best wishes, and send along military equipment in an effort to equalize the lop-sided condition of a well-armed massive military pummeling an ill-equipped smaller military in the hopes that Ukrainian mettle and valour will end up victorious over Russian lack of both -- are yet loathe to provoke the Russian Bear.

Lest a wider conflict, as Moscow threatens, develops and envelopes the entire continent and beyond. In which case rocketry can be provided, but not those powerful enough with the long range that might conceivably be shot into Russia by Ukrainian troops. For Russia's border is sacrosanct, while Ukraine's is permeable and disposable. And to think that Ukrainian fighters have been scheming resolute attacks on separatists among them willing to work with Russia makes the Kremlin beyond furious in its condemnation of Ukrainian 'terrorism'.

Mysterious attacks have been taking place in the last month or so whereby collaborators with the Russian invasion and in support of the Luhansk and Donetsk ethnic Russian Ukrainian separatists have been targeted. The Russian occupation administration in Kherson has been particularly targeted. A signal that Ukraine is rather displeased with the Kremlin's plans to purloin more huge tracts of Ukrainian territory, beyond its 2014 seizure of Crimea. The more recent predation envelopes Ukraine's industrial heartland.

And there, in the Donbas, car-bomb assassinations have selected various Russian separatist-appointed officials. Ukrainian resistance fighters executing assaults against collaborators with the Russian occupation. Friday morning saw one such blast in the outskirts of Kherson when head of the local agency for families, youth and sports Dmytro Savluchenko, was eliminated by a car bomb. A veritable flurry of unexplained bombs targeting Russian collaborators in southern Ukraine have been carried out by Ukrainian partisans who don't consider themselves to be terrorists.